Aajkaal (pronounced: IPA: [aːdʒkaːl] and its evening edition Sandhya Aajkaal) is a Bengali newspapers in Kolkata, India. Aajkaal is simultaneously published from Kolkata, Siliguri and its Tripura edition is published from Agartala. The newspaper was started in 1981 by Abhik Kumar Ghosh, and was part of the transformation of the Indian newspaper industry in the 1980s.

Aajkaal strives to survive in a very competitive newspaper market in West Bengal with the secured niche created by its leftist perspective & sports news. But nowadays some observers^[who?] feel that the quality of its sports news has deteriorated. It is also one of the very few Indian dailies which do not publish astrological predictions. Of late, it has gone through a format change to incorporate more analytical features.

The first editor of the newspaper was legendary journalist Sri Gour Kishore Ghosh. The present editor is Ashok Dasgupta, a renowned sports journalist & first of his ilk to become a full-fledged editor of an Indian daily.

Prachi Desai (Gujarati: પ્રાચી દેસાઈ; born 12 September 1988) is an Indian film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Bani Walia in the Hindi television drama Kasamh Se which aired on Zee TV. Prachi is the endorser, spokesperson, brand ambassador and the face of Neutrogena products in India. She is also the brand ambassador of Goa Tourism, a popular holiday destination in India.

Prachi was born in Surat,[Gujarat]], India. She studied in St Joseph Convent, Panchgani and completed her schooling till ninth grade in Surat. After that, she went to Pune for higher studies. She studied at Sinhagad college, Vadgaon, Pune. During her school time she was an outstanding student and always received prizes for many dancing and acting competitions .

She was in Pune for higher studies and had almost finished her junior college when her pictures were sent to Balaji Telefilms who called her for audition. She was 17 when she left her studies and started her career with Kasamh Se.

Monica Bedi (born 18 January 1975) is an Indian/Norwegian actress, television-presenter, television-contestant. She debuted in Hindi films in mid 1990s. However, her career was severely damaged when she was arrested along with her consort Mumbai underworld mastermind Abu Salem in Portugal for passport forgery, which was followed by extradition to India and jail sentence.

Bedi was born to Dr. Prem Kumar Bedi and Shakuntala Bedi on January 18, 1975 in a village named Chabbewal in the district Hoshiarpur, Punjab. Her parents migrated to Norway in 1976, when she was 10 months old where they run a garment business. She has one brother, living in Norway. She went to school in Norway. At the age of 18 she left college to follow the big dream. Monica returned to India at the age of 18 and entered Bollywood. She studied at Oxford University in London,^{[clarification needed]} United Kingdom and completed her acting education at University Of Delhi. She got into films after she met producer Manoj Kumar in England while she was studying English literature at Oxford in 1992.